Mayor Gray’s campaign benefited from secret $653K ‘shadow campaign’

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A secret effort of $653,000 funded by one of Washington, D.C.’s most prominent government contractors corrupted the 2010 mayoral race and helped Mayor Vincent Gray win, according to a prosecutor on Tuesday. U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said the well-funded, well-equipped “shadow campaign” went to work for Gray, but was not reported to campaign-finance authorities or disclosed to the voting public.

As Jean Clarke Harris, a 75-year-old public relations consultant, confessed in U.S. District Court as part of a plea deal that she helped distribute and conceal the funds spent by businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson, revelations began to surface. The “shadow campaign” bought about 10,000 yard signs, 6,500 T-shirts, and 200 umbrellas in addiction to banners, lapel stickers, posters, consultants, canvassers, drivers, laptop computers, radios, and a public-address system. In a court filing, prosecutors said many of the items had logos and designs identical to Gray’s official campaign materials, and many “if not all” of the items were delivered to Gray’s campaign headquarters. “The money was from” Thompson, Harris admitted in court, “but the plan was developed by another person.”

Machen condemned the political corruption in the city at a news conference on Tuesday and said the mayoral race was “compromised by backroom deals, secret payments and a flood of unreported cash.” He said, “Today’s plea confirms the sad truth that many of us have long feared: that the 2010 mayoral election was corrupted by a massive infusion of cash that was illegally concealed from the voters of the District.”




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